Vivek Ramaswamy Drops Out, Endorses Trump

WASHINGTON, DC (IANS) – Vivek Ramaswamy announced that he is dropping out of the 2024 Republican presidential race, and endorsed former US President Donald Trump who won the crucial Iowa caucuses.

The 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur told his supporters on January 15 night that he is ending his campaign after a dismal finish in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses.

The political newbie and the youngest candidate in the presidential race were trailing on the distant fourth spot with seven per cent of the votes counted.

He posted, “This entire campaign is about speaking the TRUTH. We did not achieve our goal tonight & we need an America-First patriot in the White House. The people spoke loud & clear about who they want. Tonight I am suspending my campaign and endorsing Donald J. Trump and will do everything I can to make sure he is the next U.S. President. I am enormously proud of this team, this movement, and our country.”

Trump, America’s twice-impeached former president facing more than 90 criminal charges, emerged triumphant in Iowa, solidifying his position as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. The Republican frontrunner, who has always praised Ramaswamy as a “smart guy” and a “very intelligent person”, recently slammed the political newcomer as “very sly” and asked voters do not get “duped” by his “deceitful campaign tricks”.

Ramaswamy said he is not going to criticize Trump in response to his attack, which he called a “friendly fire”. Asserting that he is not a “Plan B person”, Ramaswamy has ruled out the possibility of him being the Vice President, saying he would not do well in a number two position in August last year.

On Ramaswamy exiting the race, he seems to  have got back into the good graces of Trump who said the Indian American had done “He did a hell of a job!”

The exit of the anti-woke crusader, who launched his campaign bid in February 2023, comes not long after former New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced he was dropping his White House bid.

Huge Gurdon, editor-in-chief of the conservative publication Washington Examiner, wrote that every presidential election throws up an “interesting candidate” who is “evidently intelligent, highly unconventional, and less like any of the others than they are like each other”.

And Ramaswamy had become the “interesting candidate” of the 2024 election cycle.

He was clearly the star of the first Republican debate as he forced himself into most of the conversation, which included sharp jabs from Christie, who said he sounded like ChatGPT.

Fellow Indian American and Republican rival, Nikki Haley, called him a “scum” for bringing up her daughter’s reference in a debate on TikTok.

She also said that Ramaswamy has “no foreign policy experience and it shows”.